Babysteps
by Beruldh's Babbles
Summary: Danny's identity is revealed to his parents, and they seem to accept him. So why does everything seem to be falling apart?
1. Chapter 1

_Ring, ring, ring._

There was so much blood, green and red mixing together in a nauseating swirl of everything they had ever loved and hated. Something was wrong, terribly, terribly wrong. It was supposed to be simple: shoot the ghost, collect the samples, protect the city. Protect her family. It wasn't supposed to be like this. It wasn't supposed to be him.

 _Ring, ring, ring, ring…_

Her phone was persistent and she answered in a daze, "H-hello?"

"Mrs. Fenton, this is Ms. Ishiyama from Casper High calling about your son, Daniel. He has once again skipped class—have you seen him?"

Her blood ran cold, fearful blue eyes boring into her own. Even through the tint of her goggles she could make out every detail, every familiar line and shape. The last traces of baby fat clinging to his cheeks. His rounded chin that would one day take on the same definition as his father's. The wide, slightly droopy eyes that she had looked into every day since the minute he was born. But it was still all so very wrong. This wasn't her baby anymore; this was a stranger in sheep's clothing.

"He… he came home. He's sick."

The principal's frown could be heard through the phone, "Next time, please follow proper procedure for taking your child home early. The rules are here for a reason."

"Yes, I'll make sure to pay better attention next time."

"Have a nice day."

"You, too."

The call ended with an abrupt beep, leaving her to stare at, at what? Her baby? An imposter? Nothing made sense anymore, and she couldn't find her voice to ask. Jack was uncharacteristically silent beside her, his eyes dark in confusion, but his gun didn't waver.

"M-mom, Dad," the boy managed to stutter, eyes flicking fearfully between the two, "I, I can explain, but I'm really hurt right now. Please, I promise I'm still your son, please, please, help me get home so I can fix this."

Sure enough, blood was still pouring out of his side at an alarming rate, giving his skin a pale hue and causing his hands to tremble. But that could've just been the fear. The fear of _her_.

 _Oh God, my own baby is scared of me._

Slowly, she reached out a hand to lower Jack's weapon and put away her own.

"Okay."

* * *

"So, what happened yesterday? Why didn't you return to class?"

Rather than answer, Danny gulped down the rest of his milk before crushing the empty carton. He wasn't sure how much he wanted to share—he knew they would probably freak out, but he knew he had to tell them _something_.

"Danny?" Sam asked, concerned by his silence. Her purple eyes were glued to his face, concern clearly written across her face. Tuck had paused in the middle of the mastication he called eating, a clear sign that he was worried. Danny suddenly found his food much more interesting, unable to meet their combined gazes.

Unable to prevent the nervous tick, Danny's hand nervously crept to the back of his neck, "Well, uh, my parents found out. About me."

Danny's eyes flicked up at his friends only to find their jaws had dropped, any pretense at eating long forgotten.

"What?! What happened? How did it go? Are you okay?"

The barrage of questions felt like a physical assault and Danny grimaced under the pressure; this is exactly why he hadn't been looking forward to telling them. He knew it came from a good place, but they were always so _pushy_. Don't get him wrong, he didn't think he could live without his friends, and he'd be forever grateful for their help those first two years when everything was new and strange and out of his control. But now that things had settled down and he was actually on top of things, he wished he could have a little space, that he didn't have to tell them _absolutely everything_ that happened to him every day, every ghost fight. It was just too much, not that he knew how to tell them that. He felt claustrophobic. Contained.

Instead, he ran a hand through his hair and puffed out an impatient breath before replying, "They saw me shift. After about a million questions, they got it. They're not like _comfortable_ with it yet, but they're not about to shoot me either. Or turn me over to the government. Or conduct 'lots and lots of painful experiments,' so I'm gonna go with 'it went well.'"

Sam's eyes searched his face suspiciously, "What aren't you telling us? How did they see you shift? You're usually pretty careful about that."

Danny couldn't entirely contain his combined annoyance and exasperation, "They shot me, okay? As Phantom. It's not like they knew better, and they apologized and helped patch me up once they figured it out. Can we drop it now?"

"Danny!" Sam looked horrified, "I can't believe they hit you that bad! How can you just say it's okay like that?"

Tuck looked upset, but lacked Sam's righteous indignation, instead looking back and forth between the two of them as if watching an intense tennis match. Danny was just annoyed.

"Please, like most everyone in my life hasn't tried to kill me at least one. I can think of plenty of times when you or Tuck accidentally caught me with a stray shot—besides they apologized. Isn't that what matters?"

"An apology isn't good enough," Sam was beginning to get worked up, clearly beginning a rant on the treatment of the oppressed and downtrodden, "They've been hunting you for two years now, not to mention that hit must've been pretty bad for you to have to shift like that. They've hated ghosts since before we were even _born_ —how can you believe that decades of prejudice disappeared, just like that? You need to be careful, Danny; they may be your parents, but they're also _ghost hunters_. You need to make sure they really accept you as a person, that they're not gonna turn around and shoot you the first chance they get!"

The implications of Sam's speech hit Danny like a freight train and he couldn't stop his eyes from burning bright green, "They're my _parents_ , Sam, not some heartless killers. Just because you hold grudges doesn't mean I have to; you have no right to tell me what I should or shouldn't feel. If I think an apology is good enough, then it's fucking good enough. I'm not some poor, oppressed _victim_. I don't need you to save me and I don't want you to try to! And guess what, Sam? As much as you may hate to admit it, _I'm not human_ , haven't been ever since _you_ convinced me to walk into that stupid fucking portal, so why don't you fuck off and mind your own goddamn business?"

Sam's eyes lit up with indignation, clearly pissed, but she pushed it aside, "You know what, Danny? I'm more than aware of exactly what you are, and I know that's my fault. And I'm gonna have to live with that. But that doesn't change the fact that your parents have hated beings like you for decades! I'm not saying they're going to do anything, just that you should be careful—I'm just worried about you. I don't want you to come to me one night, hurt, because they did something and you weren't prepared for it. I just want you to be safe."

Danny's anger cooled to an icy indignation, "Whatever, Sam. You don't have to worry about that because while your parents might not accept you, mine _do_. Don't project your issues onto me; I have enough of my own crap to deal with to mess with yours, too."

Sam's utter look of betrayal almost made Danny regret what he'd just said. Almost. Without another word, Sam stormed off, leaving her abandoned lunch behind on the table and shoving her way out of the cafeteria.

"Not cool, dude," Tucker finally decided to chime in, looking disappointed that Danny would go that far, "I know she was pushing too far, but she just wants to help. You didn't have to bite her head off."

Whatever guilt Danny had been feeling vanished at Tucker's reprimand, "You about to lecture me, too? Last I checked, it's my life and I can do whatever the hell I want with it. Besides, isn't my parents _not_ trying to kill me a good thing? Why can't you guys just accept that maybe, for once in my life, something's going _right_?"

"Look, Danny, I'm happy for you, really. I hope that they've really accepted you and that everything will go great. But I also get what Sam's trying to say. She has a point that decades of prejudice don't just go away over night; we're just worried."

"Yeah, well I don't need your concern. Don't worry, you won't have to deal with me showing up at your door anymore. I've got better places to go, like to my _parents_." With that final declaration, Danny dramatically swept the remnants of his lunch off the table, chunking it in the garbage on his way out the door.

* * *

Oops.

I really didn't mean to start a new story rn, especially since I still have a lot I need to get done in CoE, but here we are. This idea has been floating in my head for awhile, and I finally had to start writing it down. It's not gonna be the focus of my efforts for awhile, but I'll prbly update sporadically until I finally finish CoE.

As implied in the summary, the reveal is only the beginning-it's all downhill from here.


	2. Chapter 2

Danny slumped through the door, dropping his overloaded backpack with a thunk and slouching into the kitchen in pursuit of an afterschool snack. To put it oh so eloquently, today had sucked _balls_. His day hadn't gotten any better after lunch (and all that had entailed), instead spiraling into the epitome of teenage angst. Between one of Lancer's infamous pop quizzes in English, a test he clearly hadn't studied for in Pre-calc, and a lecture in Physics about the importance of homework and attendance (this had followed a break to catch a school of rogue ectopusses), it had been a rough day. At this point, his mind was about the same consistency as the ectoplasmic sludge he regularly had to scrape off the ecto-filtrator. Finally reaching the relative haven that was Fenton Works, all Danny wanted to do was inhale a bowl of his favorite sugary breakfast cereal, and have a nice, uninterrupted, loooooong ass nap. Of course, considering his luck, it was not meant to be.

"Danny, is that you?"

Danny considered not answering for a moment before recognizing it was probably a rhetorical question, what with Jazz off at college and no other siblings (at least that he knew of). Sure there was Dani, but they didn't know about that and she didn't live here anyway; last he'd heard, she was somewhere in New Zealand.

"Yeah, it's me," Danny half responded half groaned. There was a slight pause as his mother took in his less than enthusiastic tone before promptly ignoring it.

"Could you come into the living room, sweetie? Your father and I would like to have a little talk."

He most certainly did not want to participate in any sort of 'little talk' with his parents. The last time he'd heard that phrase had been when his parents deemed him old enough to learn about the 'ectoplasmic embrace' (aka the birds and the bees for normal people). Not the best memory. In fact, he'd thought he'd finally managed to repress that particular piece of trauma.

Traumatic experiences aside, he didn't see many alternatives to this particular confrontation; it was probably better to go ahead and get it over with than let it get any worse. Following this line of reasoning to its logical conclusion, Danny dragged his over-taxed body into the living room, feeling better prepared to take on the Fright Night on Halloween than his own parents. He was immediately met with his parents rather patiently sitting on the well-worn sofa, subdued for perhaps the first time in his life. It was at times like this that Danny genuinely missed Jazz's meddling presence; she was so much better at these kinds of things than anyone else in the family it was ridiculous. As it was, Danny felt like he was walking into an intervention, which was decidedly not the best feeling in the world.

Perching rather precariously on the loveseat across from his parents, Danny decided to go ahead and break the anxiety-inducing silence, "So, uh what do you want to talk about?"

"I think you already know that," his mom bit her lip in hesitation, "We want to know more about your… condition."

Danny couldn't help raising his eyebrow at that, "My _condition_? Is that what we're going to call it?"

"Son, how long have you been a ghost?" his dad finally blurted out, incapable of both silence and subtlety, much less any sort of combination of the two. At least the use of 'son' was a good sign.

"Half-ghost," Danny responded automatically before looking away in discomfort and raising a hand to rub the back of his neck, "I think you already know that, too… since the beginning, really, ever since the portal started working. It… it was an accident. Sam wanted a pic of me in the portal and it was a flop anyway so I figured why not? But I tripped and hit something inside and it turned on and I…."

Danny trailed off, still refusing to meet his parents' combined gazes. Realizing he wasn't going to continue, his mom asked the question that had been bothering her most since their discovery, "Danny… why didn't you tell us? Why did you lie to us for _two years_?"

Guilt clearly played across Danny's face at the unveiled hurt in his mother's voice, "I'm sorry. At first I was just scared—I mean, you guys _hate_ ghosts, have been talking about 'tearing them apart _molecule by molecule_ ' since before I can remember. How could I know you wouldn't want to do the same to me? Later it was more of a, well a safety thing. If my enemies thought you knew, you'd be dragged into my problems, you'd be in danger because of me. I didn't want that for you." Of course, by enemies he really just meant Vlad, but he didn't think he was up for that conversation quite yet.

Emotion warred on the Fenton parents' faces, stuck between hurt at Danny's lack of faith in their abilities, understanding that Danny had only tried to do what he thought was right, and pride at their son's actions. He could have so easily taken advantage and no one would have been the wiser.

"I'm not gonna lie and say I completely understand, because I don't. But I want to, to work towards it together. Baby steps, right?"

Danny's relief was palpable, even from across the room; he hadn't felt this _light_ in years. He smiled up at his parents, ridiculously thankful that they weren't going to attack him or dissect him or anything.

"Yeah, baby steps."

* * *

Quick note on the nature of this fic:

This is mostly going to be like a series of drabbles, very short chapters that skip-jump through time. There is a cohesive plot, but it's not going to be nearly as intense as my other story, CoE. I'm mostly writing this for stress relief/a break from other ideas, so updates will be more sporadic than usual.

I know this chapter is kind of fluffy, but I promise I did not mislabel this fic's genre; the higher you start, the farther you can fall.


	3. Chapter 3

"Temperature?"

"21 degrees Celsius," Jack's booming voice echoed in titanium paneled lab, the timbre easily covering up the sharp clacking of Maddie's fingers moving across the keyboard.

"Blood pressure?"

"80 over 60."

The Fenton parents were ridiculously fast at taking the readings, adopting a level of professionalism and focus Danny had rarely seen outside of their research. Then again, considering the circumstances surrounding these readings, this probably _was_ a part of their research. Danny was currently sitting on one of the many stools down in the lab, still in human form; they'd collectively agreed to do a barrage of tests on both his human and ghost form to better understand his physiology. Overall it had been going pretty well. While his vitals as a human weren't completely normal, they definitely weren't ghostly either. Hopefully that helped prove his case.

While mostly supportive, his parents still didn't entirely believe the whole "half-alive-half-dead" gambit that Danny had claimed. They believed he was the real Danny; they believed that he was able to access some sort of ghost form; they didn't necessarily believe in halfas yet.

Hence all the tests.

"Okay, now let's draw a few blood samples," Maddie announced, stepping away from the computer where she had been logging info. She was much better at finding the delicate veins than her husband; it probably had something to do with his lack of attention to detail.

Maddie pulled up a second stool before sitting down next to Danny and grabbing a pair of latex medical gloves off the stainless-steel trolley next to him. Opening a new drawer, she pulled out some cotton balls and antiseptic, several vials, some tubing, and a sterile needle. Without thinking much about she grabbed Danny's arm, turning his inner elbow towards her and rubbing the area with some antiseptic. It wasn't until she had set up the blood drawing equipment and located the vein that she noticed how stiff her son was. She glanced up at his face and immediately read the tension imprinted there: the clenched jaw, stiff lips, and furrowed brow all bespoke a certain level of discomfort.

"Is everything okay, sweetie?" Maddie couldn't help but hesitate looking into her sons worried eyes. Danny immediately looked away.

"It's fine. I'm just… do you really need my blood?"

Maddie softened some but didn't give in to the request, "We need to see what's going on in your body, Danny. We need to understand how this works, how you tick. What if you get seriously injured? We won't be able to tell what's normal and what's a problem if we don't have a complete baseline."

"Is that really all that you need it for?" Danny looked back up at her with cautiously hopeful eyes, unable to fully believe that she would do something just for his benefit and not to further some ghostly agenda.

"Really," Maddie told him in the most reassuring voice she could muster. The sheer relief on Danny's face gave her a twinge of guilt but she quickly shoved it aside; it wouldn't be the first time she had given a little white lie to her kids for their own sake. Danny clearly wasn't ready to search for answers yet, and that was fine, but that didn't mean _she_ wasn't ready. Patience had never been her strong suit.

Placing the needle against her son's now relaxed arm Maddie couldn't bring herself to regret her response or delay her current plans. There were just too many questions his current condition raised, too many possibilities for her to just ignore the perfect test subject being dropped right in her lap. She wasn't a monster; she had already mentally established limits, boundaries she was fully intending to respect. This wasn't just another ghost, this was her _son_ for heaven's sake.

But that didn't mean she wouldn't run a few non-invasive tests on him.

As Jack and Maddie gleefully looked over the results of the blood analysis, Danny could feel himself tensing up again. He had seen that gleam in their eyes before, had noticed that level of animation in their gestures; it was almost exclusively reserved for scientific breakthroughs and successful hunts. He felt like a petri dish.

Maybe giving his parents free reign hadn't been the best idea.

Maybe they weren't ready for this either.

Sam's I-told-you-so face flashed through his head and he was surprised by the sheer amount of resentment that boiled up in response.

 _Stop over-thinking this, Fenton. They're trying to help you, not dissect you! It's fine. We're fine._

Danny shoved his concern into a locked box in a deep corner of his mind and smiled at his parents, deciding instead to share in their excitement. Maybe he'd finally understand exactly what he was.

* * *

 _Have mom and dad freaked out yet? Do you want to have a family skype session—I can mediate!_

 _ya thnks but no thnks jazz, i think its fine atm_

 _Okay, if you think so. I'm glad it's going so well! Way to go, little brother :)_

* * *

Holy shit I'm not dead!

Hopefully I'll be getting back on the update track soon; apparently I can only write while crazy stressed in foreign countries.


End file.
